Futility Closet: An Idler's Miscellany of Compendious Amusements

by Greg Ross

For nine years the popular website Futility Closet has collected arresting curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics. This book presents the best of them: pipe-smoking robots, clairvoyant pennies, zoo jailbreaks, literary cannibals, corned beef in space, revolving squirrels, disappearing Scottish lighthouse keepers, reincarnated pussycats, dueling Churchills, horse spectacles, onrushing molasses, and hundreds more. Plus the obscure words, odd inventions, puzzles and paradoxes that have made the website a quirky favorite with millions of readers -- hundreds of examples of the marvelous, the diverting, and the strange, now in a portable format to occupy your idle hours.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Reference

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2013

About the author

Greg Ross edits the popular website Futility Closet, a collection of entertaining curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics. Previously he spent 20 years editing science, engineering, and education publications for publishers such as IEEE, UNext.com, and American Scientist magazine. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birthday present!
I love the website. This is from the website. If you like the website, then you will like the book. That's the deal.

Think of this book as a stew of factlets and puzzles and curiousities. Anyone can make stew. Not anyone can make good stew. It's all the ingredients and the balance. Greg Ross is a master at that. Every entity is really wonderful, and he puts them in the right proportions and the right order to give it a good pace and flow, that you can enjoy each one.

Reading the book is a different experience from reading the website. It is a book. You turn the pages. You have a book mark. You tear little bits of loyalty cards off to mark your faves. The format shouldn't matter, but it does. If you like the website I assure you that it transfers well to book form.

(If you liked this book - check out the podcast. Different sort of content and format, but the same spirit. And Sharon Ross is awesome as well as Greg, and better than he is at solving Lateral Thinking puzzles)

This was a great birthday gift and I was sad when it was finished.

[Wren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book out of loyalty to Greg, since I've been a devoted reader of Futility Closet for years, and it's still one of my favourite websites. This book gets a relatively low rating from me merely because the book is just an edited collection of material from the blog, a sort of "greatest hits compilation." Put together in this way, it's very much a light reading "coffee table book," and I don't think it really replicates the experience of reading Futility Closet or listening to the new podcast. On top of that, I'm not sure I agree with Greg's assessment of what the best and most interesting items were, and the book passes over some truly memorable ones for a hit-and-miss selection. It's nice to see the Wow! Signal, the last words of Dutch Schultz, the Taman Shud Case, and some classic maths puzzles make their way in, but overall I think this book is best aimed at people who aren't already knowledgeable about the types of things Greg writes about (which therefore disincludes regular readers of the blog).

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Futility Closet is all around a great read. It's like Uncle John's bathroom reader, but intellectual. Each entry is no longer than a couple paragraphs, and instead of having tidbits of pop-culture from the '80s, it has stories of inventors and newspapers of the 1880s. The riddles and puzzles are all very good- most are solvable with some thought, but are neither super easy nor common (in the first sense of the word). This book is like the website but better. It has no entries that have been on the website (from what I can tell as a longtime reader). It also doesn't have any chess-moves puzzles (I don't mind; I'm not a big chess fan). The entries are interesting and Greg Ross' comments have a nice bit of dry wit that sometimes deliver that needed punchline.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I wanted to like this more, but I found the general lack of citations irritating.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the podcast and started reading the book when a friend bought it for me. At first it was hard to get used to because it’s such short tidbits compared to the long episodes on the podcast; however, I was soon hooked and often sent screenshots of my favorite entries to my friend. A fun book to read in small pieces or all at once.

[Reed Wolfley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had the emails sent to me for quite some time before a wise individual got me the book for my birthday. The book is very similar to the emails, so obviously well worth your while.

[Andrya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating facts and trivia with some mind-bending numbers and considerations. I can highly recommend the podcast too.

[Thomas Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a good, fun, intellectually stimulating book. I could start or stop reading whenever I wanted to. And I like how the author threw in some interesting math facts. 😊

[Myron M · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential trivia book from an essential website. A worthy successor to the "Curiosities of Literature" books he often quotes. Fun to read, and fun to read out loud.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book of interesting tidbits from many different fields. See the author's description, he says it better than I can.
I am also a fan of the blog and podcasts from this author. When I started following the podcasts, I noted that I was familiar with some of the stories from having followed the blog. Now I find that I'm familiar with some of the stories in this book from having heard of them on the podcasts -- usually in much more detail than in the book, since they are researched to fill a 15 minute segment. This is of no great importance, just a curious observation.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miscellaneous archaic trivia? YES THANK YOU.

I love this website and I loved this paper version of said website. This is one of those books where if it were a lady, I'd marry her. Or at least stare at her with poodle eyes from across the room. *sigh*

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply the best.

[Matt Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the site, and I love the book! If you're a fan of incredibly interesting facts, check it out.

[Shoshanah Marohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book! Funny, intertwining, read in short bursts. Loads of fun. You'll want to read parts out loud to your family.

[Kruemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? I love this kind of books. I enjoyed reading it immensely, especially because almost everything was new to me.

[Anish]

Good read if you follow the blog.

[Javed Ahamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entries taken from http://www.futilitycloset.com/.

If you like QI the T.V Show you will like this book.

[Themistocles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fantastic collection of small stories and interesting tidbits. Some of them are a bit meh, but overall you just can't put it down!

[Jon Schwarz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.